Bookies charged under PMLA in alleged cricket betting scam

AHMEDABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a case of money laundering against four bookies and also froze their bank accounts in connection with an alleged cricket betting racket which runs to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore, officials said.

"We invoked Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against four bookies namely Tommy Patel, Kiran Mala, Chirag Parekh and Dharmesh Chauhan among others and also froze around seven bank accounts here today," an ED official said.

ED initiated these actions after Vadodara city police filed its second First Information Report (FIR) against the four bookies under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the ED official said.

They have been charged under Sections 418 (cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may ensue to person whose interest the offender is bound to protect), Section 419 (punishment for cheating), Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), Section 467 (forgery of valuable security), Section 471 (using as forged document) along with Section 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, the official said.

The official further said that bookies did not turn up for questioning in connection with the racket even after the probe agency served them with two summons, which led the ED to freeze their bank accounts today.

On March 19, the ED had busted the racket and arrested bookies Kiran Mala and Tommy Patel from a farmhouse on the outskirts of Vadodara city. Later, the probe agency had also nabbed 13 others in connection with the betting racket.

Patel, who is a BJP councillor of Unjha municipality in Mehsana district, had been arrested earlier for his alleged involvement in the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing case in 2013.